The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Olo - Tricking the Eye

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Detail - Queen of Snows     24 x 18"     Oil     © John Hulsey

   In research conducted which may further understanding of color blindness, scientists asked study participants to look into a device consisting of lasers and mirrors, called Oz. The laser pulses fired into the participants’ eyes were calibrated to stimulate only the very specific M color cones of the eye. In normal lighting conditions, all the color cone cells of the eye, called, S, L and M cones are stimulated. L cones detect the longer wavelengths that we see as red. M cones are sensitive to medium wavelengths, which we see as green. S cones detect short wavelengths, which we see as blue. The cones overlap each other under normal conditions with the S, L and M cones never activated completely separately.

   This specific stimulation of only the M cones “in principle would send a colour signal to the brain that never occurs in natural vision,” according to the paper published in the journal Science Advances. 

   “Attempting to activate M cones exclusively is shown to elicit a color beyond the natural human gamut, formally measured with color matching by human subjects. They describe the color as blue-green of unprecedented saturation.” The new color has been given the name, “olo”.

   There were only five participants in the study, all with normal color vision. The Oz device was shone into the pupil of one eye of each participant. Although the results are considered remarkable and a technological feat, some scientists believe that announcing the discovery of a new color may be premature.

   One of the scientists who also was a participant in the study, University of California Professor Ren Ng stated, “Let’s say you go around your whole life and you see only pink, baby pink, a pastel pink. And then one day you go to the office and someone’s wearing a shirt, and it’s the most intense baby pink you’ve ever seen, and they say it’s a new color and we call it ’red’.”